


What's a Boy to Do

by Cottonstones



Series: All the Pretty Girls [1]
Category: JJAMZ, Panic At The Disco, Phantom Planet, The Like, Young Veins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always the Opposite Sex, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:44:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottonstones/pseuds/Cottonstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants all of her, every piece of Ryan he can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's a Boy to Do

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "All the Pretty Girls" by fun.

Ryan pads around the kitchen barefoot. The sliding glass doors to her house are open and the warm California air sweeps in and brushes like fleeting touches against Jon's cheek. The breeze blows at the bottom of Ryan's soft, white dress, the ruffled tiers tickling around her ankles.

She leans into Jon's space, her curls falling into her face as she smiles at him. She brushes a hand through Jon’s much-too-long hair. "You should cut it," she tells him. Jon doesn't move away from her touch. He lets her long, slender fingers card through his heavy curls. He scoffs, though.

"I almost have enough for a ponytail," he mocks. Ryan lifts her hand from his hair, crinkling her nose and resting a soft, warm hand on his shoulder.

"Ponytails are for skeezes, Jon, not respectable, young lads like yourself," Ryan says. Jon grins wide.

"Young? I'm older than you, Ry."

Ryan waves him off and floats away from him, the wind pushing her dress against her legs and making it billow out to one side. Ryan looks soft, almost blurry around the edges with the way that the light is hitting her. She picks up something from the kitchen table before she turns back around to face Jon.

She's got the scissors. She clicks them a few times, testing them in her hand.

"You trust me, right?" she asks him, her voice just a little deeper than most of the girls that Jon knows. Ryan's smiling wide and open and, now, the bright, white light is catching her from behind and making her dark ringlets practically glow. Jon returns the smile, nodding. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t trust her. She has no idea how much he trusts her.

A handful of minutes later and she's standing behind him, cutting the bottom of his hair, her fingers brushing the back of his neck. Jon's eyes flutter closed from the touch.

She cuts until his hair is above his shoulders, curling out slightly. Ryan moves in front of him and fingers the curl of his bangs, pulling them straight to snip at them. It might not be a great idea – Ryan's never cut anyone's hair but her own a few times when she was a teenager – but, at this point in Jon’s life, he'd do just about anything she asked.

Afterward, Jon is standing in her bathroom, the tiles cold against his bare feet, his shirt stripped off. Ryan leans against the wooden frame of the door and watches him carefully, her fingers pressed up under her chin. Jon shakes his head, stray hairs falling into the sink. He pushes his hands through his hair and surveys her work.

The bangs are a little uneven, curling up higher on the left side, but he likes how it came out, likes the wide, happy smile Ryan is giving him when she meets his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

***

Jon and Ryan are at a party with Alex. It's one of those themed parties that both Alex and Ryan enjoy immensely. This particular party is being referred to as "The Gender-Bender." All of the guys are in dresses and the girls are dressed as dudes.

Alex is in a bright-red dress and heels. The dress is too short, so his thin, hairy legs are on display. Ryan bumps her bony shoulder against Jon's. When he looks over, she's smiling small, something that feels like a secret. Ryan's dressed up like a boy: a white dress shirt that she’d taken from Spencer years ago, a bright-pink tie, a dark-blue vest, a pair of dark slacks.

"I'm so crushed that I couldn't get you into a dress tonight," Ryan tells him as she messes with her tie, her long fingers playing with the thick knot. Jon almost says 'Remember the roses? The eyeliner?' but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to be the reason for her smile to disappear.

Instead, he says, "I'm not that kind of lady, Mr. Ross," batting his eyelashes at her. Ryan giggles. Alex saunters back over with Z and the others. He hands Ryan a drink and slings an arm around her shoulder. Jon ignores the little flares of jealousy that spike through his stomach as Alex leads her away from Jon, taking her to talk to someone that Jon doesn’t know.

Much later, when Jon's went through at least seven beers and he's sitting alone on the couch, Ryan drops down next to him. She turns slightly, her long fingers curled around her red, sweating plastic cup. Ryan lifts her long, thin legs and hooks them over Jon's knees. She's not wearing her flats or her heels but a pair of Alex’s dress shoes. Jon tentatively brings his hand up and rests it on her ankle through the cloth of her pants.

"You're not usually the anti-social type, Walker," Ryan says, pressing her head into the back of the couch and peering at him with large, gorgeous eyes. Jon shrugs and empties the amber-colored beer bottle in his hand. The beer had gone warm half-an-hour ago, but Jon doesn’t mind. Ryan's mouth scrunches up and she scoots closer to him, reaching out to poke him in the shoulder. "Are you alright?" she asks. Jon nods automatically, but the thing is, he's kind of not.

He'd been watching Alex and Ryan all night, the way that he'd curls a hand around her sharp jut of a hip, the way that they have all these little inside jokes together – not to mention how, when Jon is out in Chicago, Alex has Ryan all to himself and Jon has to read about their exploits on Twitter.

"Can I ask you something?" Jon says, lifting his head from where it had been tipped forward, his chin against his chest, and looking over at Ryan tentatively. Ryan's lips quirk up into a smile, but her eyes still hold little bits of concern.

"Sure, go for it."

"You and Alex...is there something going on there?" Jon doesn’t mince words, but his chest is painful and tight in a way that he never anticipated. Ryan stares at him for what feels like an eternity but can't have been more than a few seconds, fingering the knot of her tie once again. Her face is peaceful and blank before it cracks into a smile and – and Ryan is _laughing_.

"Oh, Jon, are you serious? I thought I told you before that he and I are just friends. You know that whole 'guys with long hair' thing? Yeah, it's definitely not a turn-on." She does that thing again where she crinkles her nose and Jon smiles a little. He feels relieved that Alex and Ryan aren't together, but, at the same time, he doesn’t think it's a good thing to be feeling possessive of Ryan. They're not...they're not like that.

"Were you jealous, Jonny Walker?" Ryan teases, leaning forward and stroking a slender finger down his stubble-rough cheek. "You know that you'll always be my favorite." Jon thinks that it was supposed to come out teasing, like a joke, but Ryan's voice winds up coming out soft and quiet. He can feel her breath ghosting against his face.

They're quiet. Jon meets her gaze. Ryan's mouth is open a little and her eyes are big, but guarded. She pulls away quickly, flopping back down against the couch but leaving her legs in his lap. Ryan takes a sip out of her cup and smiles at him.

"So, just to be clear, Alex and I have nothing going on," Ryan states. Jon nods, his fingers starting to pick at the label on his empty beer bottle.

"Noted."

"Good. Z, though? That's a different story," Ryan giggles out. Jon can’t tell if she's being serious or not, so he laughs along.

***

Apparently, Ryan wasn't joking about Z. Jon goes to her room one morning to tell her that he's making a run to the store and ask her if she needs anything, but when he pushes her door open, he sees Ryan stretched out in her overly-soft bed, the comforters kicked down.

Ryan's back is arched, the t-shirt she's wearing pushed up a little, just enough to make the underside of her small breasts visible. She's got nothing on below the waist and her legs are spread open with Z settled between them.

"Shit," Jon says. Ryan's eyes snap open on a moan, looking right at him before she whines and shudders apart.

Jon's pretty sure he just watched Ryan come.

He turns fast without saying anything and closes the door behind him. He's hard the whole drive to the store.

***

Jon doesn't come back to Ryan’s place until he's sure that Z will be gone. She has a band thing to do today and Jon hopes that she'll at least attempt to stick to it. Really, though, he doesn't particularly want to be alone with Ryan right now, either.

He's tempted to text Spencer and ask if Ryan ever had spontaneous bouts of lesbianism before, but that would lead to a lot of questions and worried emoticons and Jon can _totally_ handle this.

When he gets back to Ryan's place, she's got her hair wrapped up in a towel. She's in a skirt, too, short and brown, and one of Jon's t-shirts that's just a little too large for her sharp, lanky body. She's curled on the couch, peeking up over the back when Jon comes in.

She doesn't look embarrassed. She looks like she doesn't mind that Jon walked in on her while she was getting eaten out by another girl. Jon's dick twitches at the memory and he wills himself to focus on other things.

"We should implement a new 'knock before entering' rule, I think," Ryan says as an icebreaker. She sounds amused. Jon feels a weird mix of turned-on, embarrassed, and jealous.

Jon scratches at the back of his neck as he takes a seat across from her. "Sorry, Ry, I didn’t know, uh...well, I didn't know a lot of things, I guess."

Ryan rolls her shoulders and shrugs. "Not a big deal. It was bound to happen sooner or later." Ryan scratches at her knee, the skin smooth and creamy. Jon's eyes follow her movements. He remembers earlier, all that skin, the way the sun had been pouring through Ryan's ivory-colored curtains and lighting up the bed.

The photographer aspect of Jon wishes that he had snapped a shot: smooth curves, sharp lines, the way that Ryan's mouth had hung open, wet and shiny, as she came apart under Z.

"How long have you and Z been, ah..." Jon's not sure how to finish that sentence. Dating? Fucking? Is he supposed to ask if she's gay now? Thankfully, Ryan saves him from saying something stupid. She stands up and stretches, he skirt sticking tight to her thighs, riding up a bit. Jon wills himself not to stare.

"It's nothing drastic. I just wanted to try, I guess? I was horny and Z offered. It was what it was." Ryan shrugs again. Jon feels like he should stand up, too. He vaguely remembers a conversation the two of them had had when he was in Chicago, when Ryan had first moved out to California, out of Brendon's house and into her own. She had told him that she was considering trying out bisexuality, but she had also been high at the time, so Jon hadn't put much weight into her words.

He isn't so sure now. He also isn't sure about the surge of arousal at Ryan saying she was horny and how ready he had been to say 'You could've come to me.'

***

Jon wakes up in the guest bedroom, later than he usually does but earlier than Ryan's usual wake-up time. He hears the subtle, soft notes of an acoustic. Jon pads down the hall, bleary-eyed and half-awake. He's got nothing but a pair of sweatpants on because it's warm inside the house. Jon's willing to bet that Ryan left the glass doors open again.

He goes to make coffee but gets distracted once he passes the large, open room that makes up their temporary studio. He can see Ryan sitting in the metal-backed chair in the room. She has her back turned to him and a guitar in her lap. The heavy set of headphones she's wearing tangle in her messy hair, her foot thumping a soft beat against the floor. It takes Jon a few seconds too long to realize that she's also sitting there in her panties and a tank top.

He sucks in a quick breath, but Ryan can't hear him, doesn't know he's there. Jon watches quietly from just inside the room. She's humming something as she plucks notes on the guitar. Her back is curved forward slightly and the thin material of the white top clings to her body, showing off the knots of her spine.

Jon wants his camera, wants to capture Ryan like this because this is Ryan, this is her in the best ways. Jon backs out of the room – he's going to risk it. He wants to keep this image with him even if no one else will ever see it. Jon grabs his camera off the dresser in the guest bedroom and pads quietly back into the studio.

Ryan's still where he left her, bobbing her head a bit, going along with the beat. Jon holds steady to frame her. He takes the picture, capturing Ryan lost in her element. Ryan must finally sense his presence because she turns her head then, looking back at him from over her shoulder, smiling big and happy, her eyes going from confused to excited in a matter of seconds. Ryan stands up, the guitar still in her hands, and removes the headphones she was wearing.

"Jon! Jon, you've got to hear this melody I came up with! I thought of it in bed and just had to come get it down before I forgot. It's amazing," she says excitedly. Jon's glad for the millionth time that Ryan's ecstatic about the music the two of them are making. Ryan bends over and sets the guitar back in the case. Jon should be looking away, but she's only in her faded pair of simple pink panties and the way she's bent is showcasing her ass perfectly. Ryan straightens back up and turns around to face him.

Like this, her legs look long, like they go on forever. If Jon looks close enough, he's sure he can see fading bruises decorating Ryan's inner thigh, ones left behind by Z. There's a little stripe of skin between the top of her panties and the bottom of the tank top. Jon's eye is drawn there as Ryan's fingers scratch over the skin a little.

"Come listen to it. I want your masterful opinion," she tells him, moving forward and wrapping those long, slender fingers around his wrist. She's holding him firmly, but not enough for Jon to not be able to break away if he wanted. Ryan tugs him to the chair she had just been sitting on and gets him seated. Jon takes the headphones when she offers them and their fingers brush together. Jon slips them on and Ryan grins as she starts up the recording.

Jon listens. Ryan is still standing in front of him and he can't help but notice how she isn't wearing a bra. Her breasts are small but heavy against the thin material of her top and Jon can clearly see her nipples, hard despite the warm temperature in the room. He shouldn't be staring, he shouldn't, but hopefully, Ryan won't notice, will think he's just really focused on her newly-created melody – which is actually really, really good.

Ryan leans forward, her chest near his face, their toes bumping. Jon could reach out and touch at her hips if he wanted, if he were allowed. Ryan takes the headphones off of Jon, moving them so that they hang around his neck.

"What do you think? Something we can use on the record?" she asks, her face tipped down. She looks so eager, proud, excited. Even though Jon misses Brendon and Spencer, he can never regret doing this, the Young Veins, with her, not if it makes her look like this. Jon nods. Ryan backs up so that he can stand.

"It sounds awesome, Ry," Jon tells her. Ryan makes a happy noise before tugging him to her, wrapping her arms around his broad, naked back and hugging him. Their chests press together. Ryan is warm, as warm as the summer breeze rolling in from outside. He can feel her chest pressed against his own and the slight drag of her pebbled nipples through the cloth of her shirt. Ryan shivers a little and Jon tells himself to let her go.

***

The piece of melody that Ryan wrote that day gets expanded and, between smoking up in the living room and more weird parties with the local hipsters, Ryan and Jon write a song. They use the melody and call it "Heart of Mine." Jon's not sure about the title, but Ryan loves it in this classic kind of way, so it sticks. They record it in the studio room, Alex watching as Ryan and Jon sing together. They sing it facing each other with the microphone between them. Jon likes it this way, seeing Ryan as she sings the words they brought to life. She's in a dress today and it rides up just above her knee. Ryan's smooth, pale chicken legs are hooked around the wood of the stool she's sitting on. She smiles while she sings.

Alex is throwing them approving thumbs-up signs from where he's sitting. Jon starts to sing the few lines that belong to him before her voice will join his once again. Ryan strums out the melody, but her eyes stay locked on Jon. Her hair is messier than Jon's ever seen, but it doesn't distract from her looks, not to Jon. Today, she's got little yellow flowers in her hair in a half-circle that Z put in for her.

Jon watches the two girls now, closer than he's noticed before. He wants to see if there is a difference, if Z's touch lingers longer than it should, if Jon can catch Ryan's eagerness to do it again.

Ryan's voice starts up. It blends in easily with Jon's and the song is about halfway through. Ryan bobs her head slightly and keeps her eyes fixed on him. They shine more brightly and clear than Jon's seen them all week. She looks like she wants to laugh (at what, Jon isn't sure), but they manage to keep their composure.

They wrote the song together, but Jon tries not to hear his own penned lines, how, despite his best efforts at drawing inspiration from his relationship with Cassie or just his idea of love in general, all his lines are about Ryan.

***

As of right now, they only have three songs written, three songs that feel good enough to show their fans that it was worth it. Jon and Ryan are outside, sitting on a naked mattress that Ryan had laid out on the grass in her yard – well, only Jon is sitting. Ryan is lying on her back on the mattress, her hands pillowed behind her head and her eyes locked on the crystal-clear sky. It's just the two of them today and Jon revels in the brief Alex-and-Z-free space.

"You know what we should do, Jon?" Ryan's voice floats up to Jon and he turns slightly to look at her. The sun is hot today, but Ryan was smart enough to put the mattress under the shade of the trees in her yard so that they manage to keep cool. She props herself up so that she's leaning on her bony elbows and grins at him, wide and happy, showing all her teeth. Jon loves when she smiles like that.

“What?” Jon has a beer sitting on the ground next to the mattress, sweating and cool, but getting it would require taking his eyes off the girl next to him.

“We should write a song about a girl,” Ryan says, her typical monotone laced with excitement. Jon arches an eyebrow and his mind flies to the image of Z and Ryan in bed.

“About Z, you mean?” he asks before he can stop himself. Ryan’s thin eyebrows furrow and she shakes her head.

“What? What, no. I mean, just a song about a girl and a guy.”

“And what are this girl and guy doing?” Jon presses. Ryan shifts until she’s sitting up next to him. Their shoulders brush and their feet bump once before Ryan worms her brightly-painted toes under his jean-covered calf. She shrugs and looks at her hands as she pets down the dingy-white baby-doll dress she’s wearing.

“I want it to be a story, you know, like how _Sins_ was,” she explains. “I have a title, sort of.” Ryan sounds nervous, but Jon doesn’t know why; she’s rarely cautious about telling him about her ideas. She should know by now that Jon would never say something cruel about her writing.

“Tell me,” Jon prods. He leans into her. Her skin is cool and she smiles a little.

“I was thinking we could call it...'The Other Girl,'” Ryan says quietly.

Jon bends to the side and picks up his sweating bottle of beer; he takes a long drink before he sets it back down and stretches out on his back on the mattress. Ryan goes down on to her back as well. There are a few meager inches of space between the two of them and Jon’s fingers itch to lace his hand with hers.

It wouldn’t be hard to tell her that he was interested, but the thing is that Ryan’s more than used to guys hitting on her, wanting to get in her pants, and the last thing Jon wants is her thinking that he falls into that category. Sure, sex isn’t something he’d refuse, but it’s not all he wants. He wants all of her, every piece of Ryan he can get.

Ryan lets her eyes flutter close, lashes dark and fanning against the soft skin of her cheeks. She hums quiet and content and Jon lets his eyes fall closed.

***

When Jon opens his eyes, the sky is a flaming orange-pink color. It’s near-dark, which means he’s been asleep for nearly an hour-and-a-half. His body feels soft and sleep-warm and he’s moved onto his stomach. Jon turns his head and Ryan is still beside him, sound asleep.

She’s on her back with her hands on her chest; she looks delicate, ethereal. Her hair is all fanned out around her and her bangs are in her eyes. Jon smiles. He doesn’t really want to move, because then she’d wake up. He’d be fine lying out here with her all night as the sky darkened around them, only her form visible in the outline of the moon.

Jon watches her for a few long moments, stares at the small part of her pink lips and the shadows casting along the sharp ridges of her thin body. He remembers the first time he met her: in the blistering hot summer when she wasn’t even sweating and her hair was flat-ironed to death. She had a broken guitar pedal. A million things have happened since then, but Jon regrets only a few of them.

Jon shifts a little, but it’s enough to wake Ryan up, because her eyes flutter open to look at him. She smiles lazily and, with her head turned to face him, their faces are too close. It’d be so easy, so fucking easy, to kiss her right now.

She stretches, her body arching up. “We fell asleep,” she says simply. Jon huffs out a small laugh.

“We took a nap outside,” he corrects.

“Mm, just a cat nap,” she says. She raises her hand, the bracelet she’s wearing jangling as it falls down her wrist. Ryan rests a hand in his hair and pets him a few times as she blinks the sleep away. Jon lets her fingers card through his hair. He's tempted to purr, just to see what she’d do.

“Are you hungry?” Jon asks as Ryan’s hand falls away. “We could go get something to eat?”

Ryan pushes up so that she’s sitting on the mattress again. The sky is darkening around them, purpling, and Jon watches the ridge of her body against the staining color of the sky. He wishes he had his camera, cell phone, anything besides his memory to catch this moment.

“Let’s have a Jonfire,” she says as she stands up on top of the mattress. She towers over Jon. He’s still lying there, trying to capture her, drink her all in.

“Is there any wood left over?” Jon asks. Ryan turns a little, the mattress dipping where she’s stepping. Ryan bounces a little and Jon’s body goes along with it.

“Yes. Now stop being lazy and build me a suitable Jonfire, Walker,” Ryan tells him. She steps carefully so that she has a leg on either side of him and crouches down a bit. “Please?” she adds sweetly. Jon rolls his eyes and pointedly avoids looking like he’s trying to see up her dress.

“Fine,” he says. Ryan moves away from him and steps into the grass before she heads to the house. “Wait, where are you going? I need an assistant,” Jon tells her, toeing on his flip-flops.

“I’m going to change my clothes. I need a more appropriate Jonfire outfit.”

Jon watches her go and shakes his head fondly as he goes to pile up the wood in the fire pit in Ryan’s backyard.

***

“A petticoat is more appropriate?” Jon asks as Ryan emerges from the house. She has two glasses of dark amber alcohol clutched in her hands and passes one off to Jon while she takes a sip of the other.

“It’s elegant,” Ryan says as she sits on one of the logs set in a circle around the fire pit. Jon’s just now lighting the fire up and it catches quick in a spark of orange and white and blue. Ryan’s caught in the glow, a sea of black tulle ruffles and glitter. She sips at her drink and Jon laughs from across the fire.

“Seriously, where do you get this stuff? Some dark corner of the internet?” Jon asks. He’s never known another girl who purposefully dressed as oddly as Ryan does, but somehow, it suits her.

“I have impeccable taste in fashion,” Ryan scoffs. Jon laughs again.

“Says the girl who used to wear a certain rosevest.”

Ryan goes quiet. Jon swears internally because it’s still too soon, too fresh, to make jokes about their past. He’s about to apologize when Ryan laughs a tiny bit.

“Good point.” Ryan drains the rest of her drink before Jon’s even halfway done with his own. “Want a refresher?” she asks. Jon takes a sip of his drink before he shakes his head.

“I’m good with this, but grab me a beer?”

When Ryan comes back out, Jon is sitting on the log next to hers. She drops down on her log, handing Jon his requested beer. She has one, too, and her cup has been refilled.

“You make excellent fires, Jon Walker,” she tells him. Jon can see her clearer now in the glow from the fire. She brushes a hand through her hair, looking at him expectantly.

“Thanks, Ry.”

The two of them sit in silence for a few long, dragging moments. Jon manages to finish his original cup of alcohol and starts in on his beer. Ryan is staring into the fire, her eyes looking far away.

“Ryan, are you alright?” Jon asks. Somewhere between waking up from their nap and now, Ryan’s grown quiet. She looks up at him and nods slowly.

“I’m okay.” Jon doesn’t think she sounds okay.

“I’m sorry about earlier about, um...bringing up, well, the past, I guess.”

Ryan snorts. “It’s not that. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know it happened.”

“Then what’s the matter?” Jon feels nervous. He peels at the label of his beer.

Ryan shakes her head and throws a smile on her face. “Doesn’t really matter, but I’m cold, Jon Walker. You should fix this problem of mine.”

“Want me to go get your hoodie?” Jon asks. He sets his beer down, but Ryan shakes her head again. She stands up and moves over to him. Ryan suddenly sits down on his knee. She doesn’t weigh anything at all, so it’s not hard for him to hold her up, but Jon unconsciously sets his hand at the small of her back.

Ryan’s arms are cold and, really, he should have known because Ryan is _always_ cold when the weather isn’t hot and muggy like it is in Vegas. He moves back a bit and slides off the hoodie he had put on prior to building the fire. Ryan doesn’t protest as Jon drapes the hoodie over her shoulders. She slides her arms into it but leaves it unzipped.

“What would I do without you, Jon?” she says as she looks at him. Her cheeks are flushed a little and half of her face is lost to the shadows of the night.

“You’d be living in a house with no water or electricity and you’d forget to eat and just make music all day long and hang out with Greenwald,” Jon teases. Ryan laughs softly. Jon feels it rumble against his body. She lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes a little.

“No, really, if I didn’t have you here with me...well, the Young Veins wouldn’t be what I wanted it to be, and our music, my words, it wouldn’t all be as perfect as it is now.”

“I think you’re a little drunk, Ry.” Jon tries to laugh it off, make her words light, since Ryan has a tendency for heartfelt conversations when she’s drinking. She hits his chest lightly.

“I’m trying to tell you I appreciate you, you jackass,” Ryan laughs. She sounds a little stunted, embarrassed. “I do...appreciate you. I mean,” she adds. “I know I don’t tell you that enough.”

“Ryan, you don’t have to tell me. I know you do,” Jon grins. Ryan flushes and smiles, shifting so that her head is resting against his shoulder. Jon holds her up with a hand around her waist and the other holding onto her thigh so that she doesn’t slip off of him.

He can feel her breath hot against the skin of his neck and, not for the first time in his life, he’s wondering what she’s thinking. Jon angles his head down and presses a kiss to her forehead. It feels like something she needs, like she needs to know that he won’t leave her.

Ryan tips her face up and looks straight at him. It almost feels like she can see straight into his soul. Her eyes are big and just a little glassy and it’s the first time in a long time that Jon’s seen her let go and show her weakness to him.

Ryan leans in faster than Jon can comprehend and their mouths meet. Ryan’s hand slides up his arm, over his shoulder, and her fingers curl around his neck, holding him in place. Jon’s mind blanks to everything except for the warmth of her mouth, the pressure, how he’s been waiting so fucking long to do this. She slides her tongue across his plump lower lip and Jon opens his mouth for her.

She’s kissing him frantically, like she’ll die without his tongue in her mouth. Jon tightens his grip on her and lets his tongue explore her, taste her, like he’s always wanted to do. She's making these little noises, whimpers and moans that vibrate right into Jon’s chest, straight down his spine and to his cock.

Ryan breaks away, panting, eyes dark and mouth red, already swelling. Jon moves his hand and lets his finger trace over her lip. Ryan shivers visibly.

"I...what are we – " Jon tries to say, but Ryan shakes her head.

“Take me to bed, Jon,” she whispers before she leans in and kisses him again, licking into his mouth and shifting in his lap until she’s straddling him. Jon’s getting hard already, almost embarrassingly quick, but he’s wanted this for so long and now it’s here. There are doubts, of course, red flags that say they shouldn’t do this, but Jon is ignoring those.

Jon manages to stand up. Ryan wraps those long, long legs around his waist. She’s light enough that it’s easy to carry her into the house. She attacks his mouth as he tries to walk to her bedroom, filthy, edged kisses that have Jon gripping her tighter. Ryan is basically fucking his mouth with her tongue at this point.

They get to her room. His knees bump into the edge of the mattress as he lowers her down on to the bed, looming over her. Ryan’s eyes are so dark. She arches, writhing under him.

“What do you want?” Jon asks quickly, his heart beating loud and harsh in his ears. Ryan grins wicked. She shrugs out of his hoodie, grabbing the hem of her glittery top and tugging it up and off. Again, there’s no bra to be found.

“I want you to fuck me. I want to feel you inside me,” Ryan whispers darkly. Jon’s cock throbs, hard and trapped in his jeans.

“I can do that,” Jon tells her. She smiles and lowers her hand between them, cupping him through his jeans. Jon hisses and Ryan’s face has a look of satisfaction. She goes back up and pops the button on his jeans, grabbing at the hem of his t-shirt.

Jon gets himself out of his shirt and reluctantly crawls out of bed to get his jeans and boxers off. Ryan is undoing the small, black buttons that run up the sides of the Victorian shoes she’s wearing – and, seriously, where does she even find this stuff? Ryan gets her shoes off before she raises those sharp hips up to tug off her petticoat and then, then, she’s laid out and naked, all for Jon.

She props herself up a bit, watching him, drinking in his naked form, but Jon doesn’t feel self-conscious, because it’s Ryan.

“I need you to fuck me now, please,” she says. Ryan rarely begs, so hearing her not only begging but begging for Jon’s cock? That’s fucking hot. Jon nods and goes back to the bed.

“Condom?” he asks. Ryan rolls over onto her stomach and Jon gets a view of her small, rounded ass as she digs in the drawer next to the bed for a condom. She gets one and hands it over to him, still watching him. Her fingers trace small patterns across the skin of her chest and she teases over her own nipples, gasping sharply when she pinches at them.

“Fuck, you’re so distracting,” Jon says. Ryan whimpers as she does it again. Jon slicks the condom on and then he’s on the bed, over her again. Ryan spreads her legs and Jon allows himself a moment to drink in her body, all that pale, pale skin, all open and exposed for him.

“You can look later, Walker. I need you now,” Ryan groans. Jon pants out a laugh.

“Bossy.”

He doesn’t ask her how she wants it, but when he settles between her legs, he lifts them up and pulls her forward, getting her legs hooked over his shoulders. Jon leans down and Ryan’s knees wind up pressed against her chest. She stretches up to get at his mouth again, his hands on either side of her shoulders.

Jon lines up and presses inside slowly. Ryan whines into their kiss; he breaks away so that he can hear her. Ryan is slick and tight and just as fucking good, if not a million times better, than Jon’s ever imagined. Ryan clenches tight around him as he fills her up. Ryan is panting as Jon bottoms out, inside her all the way.

“Fuck, Jon, fuck, move, come on,” Ryan begs again. Jon presses an open-mouthed kiss to her collarbones, to her jaw and mouth, as he slides back out of her. He can barely think beyond how amazing this feels, how he’s fucking Ryan.

Jon fucks her deep. His thrusts are just this side of rough, but Ryan mewls and digs her heels into his back. She’s loud, words falling off her tongue: 'need you, Jon, need you.' She rocks into his thrusts, getting his cock that much deeper inside of her. This whole thing feels frantic, over-due, like they’ve both been thinking about this too long for it to go slow.

Ryan’s fingers bite into the sheets and on a whim, a sudden urge, Jon grabs her wrists, not too hard but still firm, and pins her arms down into the mattress. Ryan’s eyes go wide and, for a second, Jon’s afraid that he read the signals wrong, that Ryan isn’t into this.

Ryan, though, moans out and arches against him. Their chests rub together, skin damp with sweat, and she shivers as Jon takes her. He’s lost in the feeling, can barely even believe that this is real, that it’s happening. Jon’s spent more than one night jerking off to this exact scenario.

They kiss, sharing breath, and Ryan moans into his mouth. Jon can feel her thighs quaking against him. He releases one of her wrists, snaking his hand down and touching at her slick heat, rubbing at her clit. Ryan’s body jerks and she groans, pushing against his blunt fingers. He rubs at her quick because he can already feel a burning heat curling through his stomach but wants her to come first.

Jon rubs over her clit in hard circles. Ryan’s body is drawn up tight, so close to the edge, and she’s clenching around him so fucking tight as Jon pounds into her. He drags his mouth over the shell of her ear.

“Come on, Ry, come for me,” Jon tells her. Just like that day with Z, he watches Ryan’s body arch up, her hips sharp points, her mouth falling open on a moan of his name. Jon feels her shudder apart underneath him. He’s close, too, so close. Ryan falls down, languid and pliant, on the bed and lets Jon fuck into her with hard thrusts that make Ryan’s body slide up and down the mattress.

Ryan’s hands are free, so she digs them into the soft skin of his shoulders and her heels into his back, drawing him deeper. Jon fucks her relentlessly, once, twice, and then he’s stilling as he comes.

Jon tries not to collapse on top of her, managing to hold himself up. Ryan lowers her legs from his shoulders and lets them drop down. She’s breathing hard, eyes glassy, and she looks more than well-fucked. Jon kisses her, wet and lazy, and Ryan makes soft, content noises.

He eases himself out of her and she whimpers a little. Jon rolls next to her in her bed and strips the condom off, tying it up and dropping it on the floor. Jon’s not sure whether he should leave, go back to his own room, but before he can ask or decide, Ryan wraps her hand around his bicep and tugs him close to her.

Jon relaxes next to her, the two of them pressed together, their skin damp. Ryan turns her head and catches his mouth in a soft kiss. That surge of frantic _now, now, now_ has passed. Jon’s trying to stay awake and keep his composure in this post-sex haze. 

He wants to ask her about what just happened. Since when did she think of him in that way? For how long? Was the sex a one-time thing? Is he like Z now? Jon wants to ask these questions, but Ryan’s keeping his mouth busy and her body is so warm. Jon falls asleep somewhere between the soft presses of her mouth.

***

Jon wakes up alone in Ryan’s bed. He’s naked with the sheets slung low on his hips. He and the bed still smell like sweat, like sex, Ryan. Jon sits up groggily. There’s something heavy in the pit of his stomach, something that feels like worry.

He slides out of her bed and grabs up the jeans he had been wearing the night before. He thinks he should probably find Ryan and they should talk about what happened, but he pussies out and decides to take a shower first. Jon washes away all the evidence that last night ever happened outside of his fantasies. He still remembers it all, clear as crystal in his mind. His dick twitches at the memory of last night, but Jon doesn’t touch himself. He wants the last and next time he comes to be at Ryan’s hands.

Back out of the shower and re-dressed, Jon pads out into the kitchen and finds Ryan there. She’s sitting at the table, eating some toast. She looks up at him and grins wide, just like every other day she sees Jon. Jon was expecting something to be different.

“Hey, you take a shower?” she asks. Jon nods his reply. “Cool, I was thinking we could work on some songs today, you know? Maybe that idea I was talking about yesterday?”

Jon scratches a hand through his damp hair. “Ryan, don’t you think we should talk about what happened last night?” Jon bites the bullet and just asks her. Ryan’s bright smile fades a little and she clears her throat.

“Why? I think we both know what happened,” she laughs, standing from the table, dumping the remains of her toast in the trash before she sets her plate in the sink. She’s got a little pair of gray shorts on today and another flimsy tank top.

“But that’s not something we...we don’t just do that kind of shit,” Jon tries to explain. Ryan scruffs a hand through her hair. It’s neat today, just a little curly, so Jon figured she must have showered, too. Her face is sort of blank and her eyes are locked on the floor.

“It was sex, good sex. And, I mean, we had fun right?” Ryan tries for casual and looks up and meets Jon’s gaze. Jon's stomach is tumbling down to his feet. He tears his eyes from her form and moves around the opposite end of the counter to make himself a cup of coffee. He’s quiet and doesn’t really know if Ryan expects an answer from him.

Jon can feel Ryan staring at him, can feel her weighted look. She crosses around the other side of the counter and, in a few long strides, she's standing next to him. “So,” she says as she bumps her sharp hip against Jon's, “music today?”

“Actually, I was thinking of exploring California a bit, taking some pictures, you know?” It’s not that big of a lie – Jon had wanted to take some good photos of the city since he arrived – but it’s enough for Ryan to look disappointed.

“Oh, well, I’ll come with you. We can grab some lunch or something,” she suggests. “Just let me go change my shoes.” She jerks her thumb back in the direction of her bedroom and Jon’s chest tightens painfully.

“Um...no. No, Ryan. I wanted to go...alone.”

Ryan’s face falls and she lowers her hands, settling them firm on her hips. “Jon, are you...what’s wrong with you?” she asks. She sounds annoyed, like she doesn’t understand that Jon’s chest is caving in.

“Nothing, Ryan. I need a break, is all.” Jon doesn’t even believe himself, so he doesn’t know how he expects Ryan to believe him. She makes a hurt sound next to him.

“A break from me?” she says. Her voice is small, almost sounding scared. Jon gives her a sidelong glance.

“I guess I need time to think.”

“About what?”

Jon’s coffee is done. He avoids answering her until he’s got the coffee in a mug and cooling on the counter. She stands there, eyes hard, and waits. It’s a far cry from the handful of hours ago when she was underneath him and telling him how badly she needed him.

“I thought I knew,” Jon says quietly. He glances at where Ryan’s hand is splayed along the black counter top.

“Knew what?”

“I thought I knew how you worked now. I thought I had you figured out.”

“Jon.” Ryan’s hand curls around his arm again and all the touches from last night burn through Jon’s skin, like a person who feels phantom pain after losing a limb. Jon feels all those phantom touches because, right now, he might as well be losing Ryan. “I haven’t changed,” she tells him. She sounds desperate, like she doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.

“You wrote a whole fucking song about how you’ve changed,” Jon laughs bitterly. Ryan’s hand falls away from his skin.

“Why the fuck are you being like this? You...you’re never like this.”

Jon grips the counter with both hands until his knuckles turn white. He’s got his head tipped down, won’t look at her. “We had sex, Ryan, and you’re acting like it was nothing at all. What happens happens, right?” he says, but she doesn’t say anything back. He turns to look at her; her jaw is set tight, eyes hurt. “The last thing I want is to be like Z or Michael or Alex. Don’t you get it? I don’t just want casual sex from you.”

Ryan opens and closes her mouth uselessly. From this close, Jon can see the faint pink of burn from his beard from last night across her neck, jaw, and collarbones.

"Jon I don’t – I thought – "

“I love you. Do you know that? I do. I have for a long fucking time now, Ryan.” Jon runs a hand through his hair, still short from when Ryan had cut it for him. Ryan’s fingers tremble where her hand rests on the counter. Jon isn’t strong enough to look her in the eyes; he’s too afraid of what he’ll wind up seeing there.

“I’m gonna go, okay?” he says. His shoes and shirt are still in Ryan’s room, but he needs them to go driving, so he heads back there to get dressed. Ryan stays in the kitchen and doesn’t follow after him. There’s tension in the house, heavy and familiar, a reminder from the days leading up to their split with Spencer and Brendon.

Jon gets dressed. When he pads back out into the kitchen, Ryan is still there, leaning against the counter. Her shirt has ridden up a bit, the pale skin of her hip decorated with a faint, purplish bruise that Jon thinks might be one he left behind. 

***

Jon drives the car he rented around Ryan’s neighborhood. He doesn’t know where he wants to go or what he wants to do. He feels exposed and laid bare. He told Ryan the secret he’d been keeping for a little over a year-and-a-half now and she’d all but rejected the idea of anything between them but the occasional hook-up when Ryan felt up for it.

He winds up driving out to this rock-and-vegetation-faced cliff, parking the car on the side of the deserted road, ambling over to the edge. It’s not too high up, but the view is nice. Jon’s chest aches and he sits down on the ground in the little patches of deep, green grass. His cell phone is a heavy weight in his pocket. He pulls it out because, at this point, he needs just a little help.

Spencer answers on the third ring, which is a slight surprise. Despite promises to do so, Jon hasn’t called much since the split.

“Jon? What’s up, man?” Spencer asks. Jon takes comfort in the familiarity of his voice. He needs that right now when he’s lost in California and he’s slept with Ryan and he’s surrounded by everything that is unfamiliar.

“I think I fucked up with her,” Jon admits quietly.

“What happened?” Jon’s always liked that about Spencer – he already knows what Jon’s talking about. “Are you two fighting?” Spencer ventures a guess. What happened at the house can’t really be called a fight, though, because fights are loud, fights with Ryan are screaming matches, violent, nasty things. What happened at the house had been the admittance of things a long time coming.

“We...we had sex and now I think...we fucked up.”

“Jon...”

“It wasn’t my idea, Spence. She asked me for it.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do here, Jon,” Spencer admits plainly.

“You know her better than anyone else,” Jon answers. Spencer hums on the other end of the line before he sighs. Something about it sounds like ‘I knew her.’

“One thing about Ryan Ross that never changes is that she hates to be alone,” Spencer tells him. “Don’t forget that Ryan isn’t good with relationships, let alone starting one with someone she’s supposed to be in a band with.”

“So I should go back to the house?” Jon asks. Spencer laughs just a tiny bit and, for a brief moment, it feels like old times. Jon finds himself smiling.

“Give it a little longer, but yeah, you should. Call me when you’ve got it all figured out,” Spencer says.

“Will do, Mr. Smith. Tell B I miss his goofy ass,” Jon says. Spencer laughs.

“Will do, Walker.”

***

Jon drives around Topanga until the sky starts darkening, the clouds a light purple. He heads back to Ryan’s house and half-expects that she won’t be there when he gets back. She hadn’t tried to call or text him the entire time he was gone, so Jon assumes she’s off forgetting about their fight somewhere.

When he rounds the corner to her place, though, he spots her car in the driveway. She still might not be home; Alex or Z might’ve come and picked her up. Jon kills the engine and goes to the back, to the glass sliding doors. He’s not surprised that they’re unlocked.

The house is quiet. Jon suspects that Ryan did leave. He sighs softly and rounds the corner that leads to the living room. Jon skids to a stop because Ryan is there, sitting on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks tiny and fragile and Jon’s chest hurts.

Ryan turns her head to look at him, her deep-brown eyes are red-rimmed, like she’s been getting high or crying. Ryan sniffles and Jon goes with the latter. He just stands there lingering between the kitchen and the living room, the silence between them palpable.

Ryan slides off the couch. She still looks small and delicate in her sweatpants and t-shirt. “You came back,” she says softly. Jon nods.

“Of course I came back.” Jon suddenly feels tired at the prospect of having a long, drawn-out argument with her. She probably didn’t want him to come back, probably wanted him to check into a hotel and book a flight back to Chicago. “All my stuff is here,” he finishes lamely.

“Oh...right.” Ryan wraps her thin arms around herself and bites at her lip, leaving it red and swollen, reminiscent of the night they spent together.

“I’ll just...I’ll leave you alone.” He moves past her and it takes every bit of willpower he has to not turn around and pull her lithe body to his.

“Jon, wait,” Ryan says. She either doesn’t have Jon’s kind of willpower or she doesn’t care to use it, because her hand grabs at his wrist, long, slender fingers circling around his skin and pressing against his pulse point. Jon stills instantly and turns to face her. Ryan doesn’t let go of his wrist. She looks at him through her lashes and her mouth trembles just a little.

“I know we argued. I know you’re upset, but please, please, don’t go back to Chicago,” Ryan says quietly. There’s an undercurrent of fear threading through her voice and Jon’s breath catches. He hates that he’s the reason she’s scared, upset, crying.

“Chicago? Why would I go back there now?”

Ryan’s mouth hangs open, like she has the answer but doesn’t want to verbalize it.

“Because of what happened, because I fucked everything up.”

Jon reaches out with the hand that Ryan’s not holding on to and cups her tear-damp cheek.

“Ry, Ryan, I’m not leaving. We have an album to make, don’t we?”

Ryan’s eyes go wide. “You still want to be in the band?”

“You thought I wouldn’t?”

She looks down at her feet, hiding her face from him, but he can still feel the heat of it against his palm. “I thought you were tired of me. I thought you’d go back.”

Jon’s heart stutters painfully in his chest. “You thought I’d go back to Panic?” He’s keeping his voice careful and tentative; harsh words aren’t what they need right now. Ryan shrugs her thin shoulders before they slump back down. “Ryan, listen to me right now. I won’t leave the band or you. Even if you can’t ever love me back, I still won’t leave. I promise.”

Ryan’s fingers tighten around his wrist, near-painful, but she’s shaking like she’s afraid. Jon’s heart and stomach are constricting uncomfortably, but at least...at least she knows.

“You mean it? You won’t go?” she breathes. Jon nods and lets his hand fall away from her face. Jon remembers the weeks leading up to the split, how Brendon and Spencer had left Vegas and taken refuge in California, how they were all running from their very obvious problems.

“You’re stuck with me, Ross,” Jon jokes. Ryan laughs just this side of sorrowful. She lets go of his wrist and there’s that silence again. At least Ryan knows Jon won’t leave her, at least that’s one problem taken care of. There’s still that little detail of how Jon loves Ryan so desperately and how she doesn’t seem to return those feelings, though.

“You mind if we work on the album tomorrow? I’m pretty drained tonight,” Jon tells her. Ryan looks up at him, her eyes a little clearer, and smiles just a tiny bit before she nods.

“Sure, Jon.”

“Great, so, um, goodnight, Ryan,” Jon says. If he can just hold on to this composure until he gets to his room, that’d be great. Ryan mimics the goodnight and Jon pads through her house and back to his room, only letting out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding until his door clicks closed.

Jon collapses on his bed, on top of the blankets, and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe a large part of him was hoping that Ryan loved him back. But...being friends, best friends and band mates, that was good, too. He was important to her and, sooner or later, that would be enough for him.

Jon’s wallowing quietly in his misery when there’s a knock on his door and Ryan pushes inside his room. Her eyes are nearly back to normal, but she looks nervous. “Is it alright if I come in?” she asks. Jon sits up and nods.

“Yeah, of course, Ry.”

Ryan comes over and sits next to him on the bed. Their thighs brush and the bed is pushing them together a little. Ryan twines her fingers together and Jon just waits. “We’re okay, right?” she says after a few too-long moments. Jon nods despite the pain lodged in his chest. It’ll pass.

Ryan’s hand spreads out on her knee, long digits curling around the bony limb. She tips her head down again. Jon’s still waiting and then her hand slides over to his lap. She’s taking his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. A questioning noise gets stuck in Jon’s throat. Her hand is warm and her fingertips have calluses that match his own as of late.

“Do you know what I thought the first time we got to talking?” she asks.

“Like the first time ever?” he says. Ryan looks up at him and nods. Ryan’s eyes are wide and gentle and, even though this is the most dressed-down Jon has ever seen her in quite some time, she’s still the most beautiful girl he’s ever laid eyes on.

She strokes her thumb over the back of his hand. “I thought, ‘For the first time since I left Vegas, here’s someone, a guy, who really gets me.’ And that feeling only increased as time passed. There were a lot of times I was afraid of it, how easily you and I connected...how strongly I felt about you, Jon.”

“I...what are you trying to tell me here, Ryan?”

Ryan laughs. “Come on, you know I’m shitty at this kind of stuff.” She rubs over his hand again. “I should’ve told you a long time ago. Spencer always told me to tell you...” She shakes her head and laughs ruefully.

Jon swallows a thick lump in his throat. He has a feeling, a hope of what he thinks she’ll say, but he doesn’t want to let himself hope for that. “Tell me what?” he dares to say.

“I do love you, Jon. I mean, I’m in love with you. I have been for a while now.”

“What?” No, seriously, Jon’s mind can’t process this kind of information. His breath quickens. “How long, Ryan? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ryan reaches out and takes Jon’s other hand. They’re so close. “It was...I didn’t want to fuck up the band and then there was Cassie and there were guys in my life and...I didn’t think you felt the same. Remember that song 'The Other Girl?'” Ryan asks. Jon nods. She laughs. It sounds just a little sad and guilty. “It...I wrote it about you, sort of, like how I felt when you were with Cassie.”

“I...wow, I had no idea,” Jon says. Really, he read the lyrics and everything and had no clue.

"I’m sorry. We don’t have to use it if you don’t want."

“Ryan, let’s not talk about music right now, alright? I mean, we could’ve been together for years now, Ryan.” Jon laughs a little. “We’ve wasted so much time already. Let’s not waste anymore.”

“What happens now?” Ryan asks him, her hands still curled firmly around his.

“Now?” Jon says. Ryan nods. “Now it’s alright for me to do this,” he says. He closes the few inches between them and catches her mouth in a light kiss. Heat flares in the points where the two of them are touching, their joined hands, their mouths, the way her knee is against his thigh.

Ryan gives into his kiss, kissing back, their mouths meeting again and again. Jon brushes his tongue across her lips and she opens up for him, drawing him in. He takes his hands from hers and instead buries them in her hair, holding her close.

Ryan shifts her body closer, her hands fisting in his shirt. The kiss turns desperate. They break apart to breathe, their foreheads pressed together. They’re sharing air.

“I love you, I do,” Jon whispers against her mouth. Ryan steals another chaste kiss.

“I love you, too.”

***

“You two finally sealed the deal?” Alex asks two days later. Jon grins and tightens his hold on Ryan’s hand. In these last two days, he’s made Ryan his girlfriend. ("Be my girl, Ryan Ross?" "Oh, my god, you’re so cheesy, Jon.")

“Jealous?” Ryan shoots. Alex rolls his eyes.

“You know that you’re just asking for a million interviews about how you two are one of those musical couples and questions about what it’s like being in a relationship and working together,” Alex warns them. Ryan shrugs and rests her head on Jon’s solid shoulder.

“Not a big deal. We’ll tell them how awesome the sex is – because it is awesome, I mean,” Ryan says. Jon laughs, but that’s definitely a truth. He’s had more sex with Ryan in two days than he had in a month with his last girlfriend.

“Wow, well, that’s an interesting mental image. We have a record to make, though, I believe, so let's do that,” Alex tells them as he heads down the hall to their studio. Jon leans in and kisses Ryan before he stands from the couch and offers her his hand. Ryan takes it and he tugs her up.

Things aren’t perfect. They have to re-learn each other once again, to make the jump from friends to lovers, and it’s a little scary – all the possibilities of things that could happen between them, things that wouldn’t happen if they had stayed just friends – but Jon thinks it’s the good kind of scary. Jon thinks that he and Ryan can do this. They will do this.

“What a considerate boyfriend I have,” she teases before she leans in to press another kiss to his lips and slap at his jean-covered ass. “Remind me to thank you for that later,” she tells him with a wink before she leads him back to the studio to finish their album.

Jon hopes no one will mind that the majority of it will be love songs.


End file.
